1. Field of the Invention
The invention pertains feeding devices for welding wire, particularly for charging a welding wire guide system with a new coil of wire.
2. Description of the Related Art
Welding wire is commonly dispensed from large coils through a wire guide system to the welding site, i.e. the welding gun or an automated welding head. The gun or welding head includes a wire feeder for longitudinally feeding the wire into the welding arc as needed, but the welding wire feeder at the welding site is inoperable until wire has been supplied thereto.
It is not uncommon for a considerable distance to exist between the location of the welding wire coil and the welding site. Welding wire guide systems are used to guide the welding wire from the dispensing coil to the welding site, and such guide systems usually consist of elongated conduits, often having curves, bends and angles through which the wire travels. Upon a coil of welding wire being depleted, the welder feed will pull the wire through the guide system until the wire is completely depleted. Thereupon, upon new welding wire being dispensed from a new coil, the operator must insert the end of the new coil into the guide system and manually push the welding wire through the guide system, usually a difficult, time consuming and arduous task.
To this date, an effective system for feeding a new coil of welding wire into a guide system has not existed, and the invention solves this problem.